While serving all students in the university with composition and study skills courses, the English Department also offers strong programs in literature and specialized writing. As literature courses challenge students to consider matters of broad human significance, the many offerings in creative writing, exposition and journalism encourage students to develop their talents for expressing ideas and emotions. The department directs its majors and minors toward courses that will further enhance their abilities to analyze and discuss literature or to write fiction, nonfiction or poetry. A career in one of these fields, either teaching or another professional endeavor, can be a richly rewarding experience.

The department offers four undergraduate English majors and six minors. The majors are in English, English/graduate-bound, English secondary education and writing. The six minors offered are in writing, journalism, journalism education, film studies, English and English education. The department also participates in the interdisciplinary major in liberal arts and sciences, as well as the gender studies and Native American studies minors.

Student Organizations

The North Wind Student Newspaper

Passages North Literary Magazine

Sigma Tau Delta Honor Society

Student Michigan Education Association

Department Facilities

The department operates the Writing Center in the Learning Resources Center. This facility is open daily to help all students, whether or not they are enrolled in writing courses. This assistance is free to NMU students.

Department/Program Policies

English graduate-bound majors are required to have proficiency at the 202 level in a language other than English. Other students in English are encouraged to complete at least one year of study in a language.

Students majoring in English secondary education or minoring in secondary education English or secondary education journalism must maintain a grade point average of 2.70 or greater with no grade below a “C” in the professional education sequence, the major and/or minors and required cognates combined.

Courses within each major that can be used to satisfy liberal studies requirements are listed with the Roman numeral (in brackets) that coincides with the liberal studies division the course falls under.

Courses within each minor that can be used to satisfy liberal studies requirements are listed with the Roman numeral (in brackets) that coincides with the liberal studies division the course falls under.